01.26.04
 By
Mel Davey
E-Commerce, E-Business, Internet Shopping, On-line Storefronts, Digital
Storefronts, Electronic Shopping, Internet Commerce, Web Commerce,
B2B, B2C, etc. are all terms used by marketing to grab a "mind share".
They all refer to buying and selling over the Internet.
Client-Server, client side functionality, server side storefronts,
thin client, server enabled, client enabled are terms that, if you're
a busy Internet shopper, are important to you. They refer to the way
your Internet shopping session functions.
A
server is a terminal device that delivers information in response
to a request. Your telephone answering machine is a server terminal.
The telephone you use to make a call is a client terminal. When you
make a call and get an answering machine, the message from the machine
is passed on to you via the client machine, your telephone. |
What do telephone answering machines have to do with Internet Commerce?
Well, like that telephone system, all Internet shopping involves at
least two terminals: the server machine which is sometimes called
the host computer, and the client machine which is your computer.
In e-commerce, the essential server or host function is to store,
and make available to a client machine, all of the information that
is unique to a store on the Internet. This unique information will
include:
product data and descriptions
data controlling the look and feel of the storefront itself
feedback pertaining to the actual purchases by the customer
Your computer, the client machine, will run a web browser application
which allows you to view the unique store information as hypertext
pages. These pages have the capacity to provide rich presentations
of audio, video, images, and text.
In addition to the unique functions in e-commerce, there are numerous
generic functions that must be performed to complete the on-line shopping
experience. Either the server machine or your computer can perform
them. Some of these functions are:
- saving product selections to temporary memory
- computing taxes
- computing shipping costs
- totaling your order
- getting gift wrap instructions
- forms checking
- getting shipping instructions
- remembering who you are and what you bought last time
- generating a purchase order
- sending you an e-mail confirmation of the order
- credit card verification (This is not card authorization which
is strictly a server side function.)
To a shopper or a merchant, it can make a big difference in time and
efficiency, just where these generic functions are performed. If you're
like most of us, you hate standing in line at the check out counter,
hate price checks, hate waiting while a clerk tries to find an item,
hate....well anything that delays your trip to the beach. To that
end, you need to know what kind of software the merchant is using.
E-Commerce, storefront software can be either client side or server
side functional. Simply put, the type of software will determine whether
generic functions are performed on the server computer or your computer.
To demonstrate how this affects you, take a look at a real world paradigm
which probably best emulates a virtual world shopping experience.
It's the type of store where you view items on a display floor and
write down the item number on a pad. You keep doing this for each
item you want until you're ready to check out. At which time you go
to a central location where a clerk totals the price and tax for everything
you've selected; you make payment arrangements, and pick up your purchases.
Now do this in the virtual world using e-commerce software that has
to perform all of the generic functions on the server machine. Select
an item from the display floor. Write down the item number. Take the
slip of paper to the check out counter and ask the clerk to compute
your taxes and shipping costs on that item, and hold the slip for
you while you look around the store some more. Select another item,
take a new slip paper to checkout, ask the clerk....you get the idea.
Server side functionality means that each time you make a selection,
you must repeatedly go back to the clerk (server) to hold that selection
for you. It also means that if you want to see what your total purchases,
shipping costs and taxes are, at any time, you must go back and ask
the clerk to make the computation.
However, the clerk, the server computer, is very fast, so why is this
a problem? The problem is that each item you select is about a mile
away from the checkout location and the clerk is very busy. You have
to walk this mile each time you make a selection. And you have to
stand in line waiting while the clerk serves other customers.
How long can that take? Consider that that mile represents the time
it takes to request a page and get a response over the Internet...you
can judge this for yourself. The clerk is the server machine. If it's
just you that needs the clerk....no problem. If one hundred shoppers
show up at the clerk's location at one time....expect to wait. If
you're a customer, you may just go home. If you're a merchant, you're
in big trouble. You may be losing customers.
The irony of this server side scenario is that while you wait for
each transaction from the server, your own computer sits idle. To
address this wasted capability, client side storefront software was
developed.
A client side storefront runs in the web browser, on your machine.
It performs all of the generic on-line shopping functions on the fly.
That is: it stores all of your product selections, cost information,
and shipping instructions in the browser session; it can save information
about you and your purchases on your computer; it totals the order
and displays taxes and shipping costs almost instantly; and, it presents
a complete purchase order for your review, without delay and without
ever having to make another request of the server. In fact the only
time client side storefronts have to connect back to the host server
machine is to request new information unique to the store or send
a summary of the completed shopping session.
Client side e-commerce software is generally written in hypertext
markup language (HTML) using JavaScript scripts to provide the various
generic e-commerce functions. Both of these languages are ubiquitous
and run in the client machine's web browser without relying on any
special server side functions. This means the merchant owns and operates
their own store independent of the host computer and any special server
e-commerce software. It means that the storefront is portable and
can be hosted just about anywhere, from any Internet Service Provider.
If you're a shopper, you want speed. If you're a merchant, you want
happy shoppers. Client side, e-commerce, storefront software delivers
both.
About the Author:
Mel Davey is the creator of ImagineNation (http://imaginenation.com/),
a full service E-Commerce Application Service Provider, offering Storefronts,
Order Management Utilities, and 3rd party credit card processing.
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| From
the Forum: |
| Credit Card Info |
I run a tourism web site which promotes small b&b's. The site is working well and clients are very happy.
But, now they would like to obtain credit card information when receiving an enquiry. They do not want the cc's processed, they are just kept as a sort of security for the booking. ...
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